Five Places Sans Most Definitely Should NOT Be Sleeping (An Undertale Fanfic)

Chapter Two

Sans quietly opened his bedroom door, stifling a yawn. It was late, way later than when he usually got home, but Toriel had wanted a lengthy update on how Frisk was doing in the Underground, asking him to detail everything. Conversations were difficult through the massive Ruins door, but Sans had complied. He never understood why she wouldn't just...leave the door open. He'd asked once, a long, long time ago, and she had refused to speak to him for days. It was probably best he left that topic alone.

Pausing in the center of his room, Sans stretched, much like a cat, and finally allowed himself to yawn hugely. Each joint popped and cracked, leaving the skeleton immensely satisfied and exhausted. 'man, all i want to do right now is go to bed.' Even as the thought floated through his mind, Sans outwardly cringed, eyelights sweeping over his dimly lit room. His bed was an absolute wreck; the sheets and blankets were nothing but a compacted ball in the corner, and he was fairly certain the mattress was beginning to grow mold, easily cutting that choice out. The floor wasn't an option either, as his little tornado had decided to do a bit of exploring and destroy...everything. Either that or Toby had come charging through like a wrecking ball. With his luck, probably both, and the end result was an assortment of God knows what scattered across his floor, most of which he couldn't even see in the dark. Normally, when faced with this scenario, Sans would go sleep on the couch and deal with Papyrus' peeved rant in the morning, but he was so tired he didn't have the energy to even shortcut downstairs, let alone walk.

Sighing, he rubbed at his eye sockets, yawning again. When his hands dropped, something caught his eye: his trombone, laying carefully in the only mess-free corner of his room. Sans stared, cocking his head to the side, then blinked and shrugged. "at least i know it's clean," he muttered, walking over with his hands jammed in his pockets. His trombone was probably the cleanest object he owned; it was his world, second only to Papyrus. It was the only thing he owned he actively took care of without his brother nagging at him. He even polished it twice a day. So, taking one last look at his precious instrument, Sans closed his eyes and snapped his fingers, smiling sleepily as he was suddenly hit with a wave of vertigo.

When the nausea passed, Sans cracked open one eye, his grin somehow becoming lazier as he gazed up and the now gigantic trombone. Shrinking himself wasn't something he did often, at the risk of Toby thinking he was a snack (as if the hyper little dog already didn't eat most of Papyrus' bone attacks), but it certainly was cool seeing the world so much bigger than he was used to. Magic flaring in his left eye, he prepared himself for the exertion of shortcutting inside, no way was he climbing up the bell, and in a brief flash of light he was there.

Sitting down, he slid down the slope of the bell into the inner tube of his precious instrument, immediately curling into a ball in the dark. He was so tired. His trombone was warm to the touch and humming with his own magic, making Sans feel like he was wrapped in a cocoon of comfort and safety. He sighed, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. The skeleton was out like a light within seconds.

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"SANS! WAKE UP, YOU LAZY BONES, YOU HAVE TO GET TO WORK!" Papyrus enthusiastically slammed his brother's bedroom door open, only to stop dead when he saw that Sans wasn't in his room. His eye sockets narrowed suspiciously. "SANS?"

There was a sudden tugging on one of his gloves. "NYEH? OH, HELLO, HUMAN! DID YOU SLEEP WELL?" He beamed down at the tiny child, who returned the expression. Frisk had taken to the skeleton brothers rather quickly, and Papyrus has been easily swayed to allow the child to stay with them. Initially, Frisk had spending their nights on the couch, but lately they had taken to sleeping with Papyrus in his room. The younger skeleton sometimes woke to the human curled into tiny ball, shivering violently and sobbing in their sleep. Papyrus always just pulled them closer, having dealt with Sans' night terrors for years. He couldn't help but feel his soul crack each time this tiny, young human woke screaming. He wondered if this the cause of these nightmares was the reason they never spoke.